“It’s great,” Guillas, a native of northwest France, said over the phone. “You support your region. And you support the Beard House, (which) has brought incredible benefit to the American culinary scene.”

Guillas oversees the kitchens at The Shores Restaurant, the La Jolla Beach Tennis Club, and the romantic Marine Room. And he only sleeps three-to-five hours a night. His waking hours are filled with cooking, shopping for product, planning, eating (but not after 9 p.m.), and traveling as kind of a food emissary for San Diego.

“I’m able to meet incredible chefs. Every day I learn something.”

Guillas’ debut cookbook, “Flying Pans,” written with his Marine Room chef de cuisine, Ron Oliver, was a finalist for cookbook of the year at the 2010 BookExpo America.

The Shores and Marine Room restaurants will participate in Restaurant Week, Sept. 19-24. See their menu offerings at sandiegorestaurantweek.com.

Glass Door names new executive chef

An enduring reason to go to the Glass Door: It makes the most of its skyline-and-harbor view. The fourth-floor restaurant and lounge would be on the sixth floor of a neighboring building. It’s housed in the Euro-boutique-styled Porto Vista Hotel, a patch of high ground in Little Italy that slopes down to the water.

A new reason to go: The Porto Vista Hotel announced last week that it made Brent Calley the Glass Door's new executive chef, a role he’s been performing since August. There’s a new menu that nods toward European cuisine capitals. And the kitchen sources ingredients from the nearby Little Italy Mercato.

The new dinner menu goes the way of the $20-and-under gourmet, a big trend this year. Calley does crab-stuffed scallops, seared sea bass, bacon-wrapped lamb loin, New York steak in a red-wine demi-glace, roasted chicken, and a vegetarian cassolette, all somewhere between the $13 and $20 price point.

Calley’s last post was a mile away, at the Sè San Diego Hotel where he was chef de cuisine. His knives have also seen the Hard Rock Hotel, Jake’s Del Mar, Cilantros by the Sea, and Pacifica Del Mar.

Top of the Market's new top chef

Top of the Market has a new executive chef with a name dear to any fan of yacht rock music: The waterfront restaurant recently brought Chef Michael McDonald onboard.

He’ll be pulling fresh seafood from the Fish Market retail section downstairs. And he’s using seasonal ingredients, another food trend whose time has come. McDonald's $44 Maine lobster pot pie has treats for the locavore: veggies from Chino Farm. And there’s a $34.50 crispy-skin loup de mer sea bass with tomatoes from that Rancho Santa Fe farm, too.

McDonald made his bones in restaurants at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and most recently, Brix@1601 in Hermosa Beach. Top of the Market will participate in Restaurant Week, see their menu at sandiegorestaurantweek.com.